Push of Pikeshttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com
Theology, philosophy, and just plain thinking.Wed, 21 Feb 2018 01:03:55 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/ce765998f30621cdd8c8ac2253e940f6?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngPush of Pikeshttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com
On Christian Reconstructionism: A Retractionhttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/on-christian-reconstructionism-a-retraction/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/on-christian-reconstructionism-a-retraction/#commentsWed, 16 Nov 2011 10:46:57 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1101It has been a long time since I have posted here, so I thought that I would get the ball rolling by posting a retraction of previous statements that I have made regarding the movement Christian Reconstructionism. Though I still think what I do about how Christians should interact with the government, it is appropriate for me to publicly “take back” what I said about something I only distantly understood.

When I previously wrote about Christian Reconstructionism, I did so without even giving its proponents the courtesy of a fair hearing on YouTube, let alone reading any of their books explaining the fundamentals of what they are about. I sort of chased around the edges, read articles by their most vocal detractors, and moved to condemn them on this blog. Here are a few of the names that turn up when you look into Christian Reconstructionism (ripped from the Wikipedia article):

Though he was not himself a Christian Reconstructionist, the Christian apologist Cornelius Van Til inspired the movement with his views on presuppositional apologetics, which is a particular strand of Christian apologetics that works from the notion that thinking from the Christian worldview is the only rational way to think.

Some American politicians claimed to be linked to the movement include:

Rick Perry
Michele Bachmann

Christian Reconstructionism is a ghoul that some people in the news media like to pull out to make the Republican Party seem really scary. While I have no particular love for the Republican Party myself, the biggest problem the GOP faces is probably self-aggrandizement rather than infiltration by Christian splinter groups with wacky views of the end times. To be perfectly frank, everyone already knows that the Republicans want to take over the country, and American Christianity definitely has problems with wacky views of the end times.

To return to the subject at hand, I did not come to praise Christian Reconstructionists but to bury them — that is, bury them under a mound of apologies and requests for forgiveness for not dealing with their ideas or the application of their ideas more thoroughly. While I still have not completed a thorough examination of their materials (i.e. I have yet to read a whole book written by a Reconstructionist), I have done a little more examination of what they believe and I have found myself in the wrong about just how it is that they intend to take over the world, if you will pardon the expression.

I suppose one way to summarize what I have found is that they believe that lots and lots of people are going to come to Jesus, and they will voluntarily bring all of their culture and society into obedience to God. Here is a YouTube video from a time that Rushdoony defined Dominionism (a concept related to Reconstructionism). What you will find is that Reconstructionists believe in being politically active and in keeping government from becoming too powerful while seeking to peacefully spread Christianity. Have you ever heard of evangelicals before? They try to do that too.

While I still subtly disagree with Christian Reconstructionism, Reconstructionists have some rather edifying things to say to Christians about living for God in real life. While I take issue with some of the things that they say, they are not a pernicious evil to be rooted out of conservative circles.

In sum, I just want to say this: Christian Reconstructionists, while I may write in the future to disagree with some of your ideas, I promise to engage with your thoughts more charitably than I have previously. Because I have been so vocal in the past about the nastiness of Christian Reconstructionism, I thought it proper to be equally public with my retraction. Reconstructionists, while a minority, are not crazy, nor are they bent upon world domination. Though I would not wholeheartedly buy into their ideology, I never wholeheartedly buy into anyone’s ideology, be that intellectual pride, standoffishness or some other such thing.

I hope that is a satisfactory beginning. Thanks for reading.

]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/on-christian-reconstructionism-a-retraction/feed/3bennett6644Photo Fighthttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/photo-fight/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/photo-fight/#respondWed, 29 Jun 2011 18:45:03 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1092I know, I know. We are on hiatus until September. That is still true! But I wanted to take a moment to let you guys know what at least two of us are up to in the mean time.

Nathan and I are both competing in something called Photo Fight. We’ll be taking pictures, they will be posted, people will vote, and only one will survive. Or, at least only one person will be declared the winner. The other will just be sad.

Anyways, pictures start getting posted on July 1st, and the bios are already up. So, go check it out!

]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/photo-fight/feed/0jamesfarnoldPush of Pikes is on hiatus for the summerhttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/push-of-pikes-is-on-hiatus-for-the-summer/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/push-of-pikes-is-on-hiatus-for-the-summer/#respondTue, 28 Jun 2011 16:34:19 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1089We’ll be back in September. (And there may be occasional posts from time to time before then.)
]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/push-of-pikes-is-on-hiatus-for-the-summer/feed/04bstaplesPolygyny, Typology and Hermeneuticshttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/polygyny-typology-and-hermeneutics/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/polygyny-typology-and-hermeneutics/#commentsWed, 22 Jun 2011 19:00:25 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1054Last Wednesday, James posted a response to an essay I had posted a week earlier, which was itself an example of the kind of thinking that Stephan had written about closer to the beginning of this blog. This excites me because it represents a respectful and serious engagement of ideas, which is what this blog is all about in the first place. Continuing this grand trajectory of ideas, I’m now posting my own response to James’ response to my application of Stephan’s original series, per his intention. All this to say: we’re all friends here, are taking our disagreement seriously and are enjoying ourselves.

¶1:
First off, James says that my last post was “an argument against the idea that monogamy is a practice that can be defended strongly from the Bible.” I’d actually argue otherwise; defending polygyny, as I did, isn’t necessarily an attack on monogyny, though it is necessarily an attack on the exclusive ethical correctness of monogyny. I believe that my post was an attack on this exclusivity that Westerners claim for monogyny as the ideal for marriage, not on the fact that monogyny is one perfectly acceptable and ideal model of marriage.

¶3:
I’m unclear on who “us” is in this paragraph. Is this a reference to “us” American Christians or to “us” Christians worldwide?

¶4:
James is right in pointing out that I don’t clearly classify Adam and Eve as anecdotal or typological. On closer examination, it’s probably prototypical more than either other category; it’s used to establish precedent for marriage in general, whether you think polygyny is acceptable or not. It’s not a metaphor, which rules out typology, and it’s a clear precedent for propositional teaching both in the immediate context and elsewhere in Scripture, ruling out the spirit of what I was referring to by “anecdotal.” What details of the story of Adam and Eve are to be used as models for our own marriages and what details are incidental is another question, however. I don’t remember any passage of Scripture that uses Adam and Eve to argue against polygyny.

¶4:
James does ask, in reference to Genesis 2:24, “Once you are already ‘one’ with another, how can you be a part of a ‘two’ with someone else that becomes a new ‘one’?” This may be a question in our minds, but it doesn’t seem to have been one that Moses (assuming he wrote both Genesis and Deuteronomy) considered to be an issue. The fact that we have difficulty understanding or envisioning something because it is outside our experience does not mean that it is impossible. Not having experienced, or even witnessed, polygynous relationships, I’m hardly qualified to explain their inner workings. Difficulty in conceiving of something as possible does not disprove something, especially when the Bible teaches it. I have heard, second-hand, of loving, functional polygynous marriages, so my strongest positive argument on this issue is that I hear that this is possible.

¶5:
Regarding typology, James is again right; sometimes typology is the clear teaching of Scripture. The typological understanding of marriage as a reflection of Christ and the Church is clearly taught in Scripture. Types should be seen, though, as metaphors that don’t have to have one-to-one correspondences with the greater reality they represent. For example, Jesus points out with the sign of Jonah that the Pharisee will not repent in the same way that the Ninevites did. Another important difference between Jesus and Jonah are that Jonah was swallowed because he refused God’s commission, while Jesus died and was buried because He accepted God’s commission. Jesus’ point was not that Jonah’s story corresponded on all points with His, but that, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and nights, so Jesus would be in the Earth for three days and nights, as well as pointing out that the Pharisees were more stubborn than the Ninevites. In the same way, Paul’s clear point in teaching that Christ and the Church and husbands and wives reflect each other typologically is that wives should submit to their husbands and that husbands should love their wives. He does not mention polygyny, as it’s outside the Ephesians’ experience even more than it is his own.

¶7:
I actually won’t push back on the plural nature of the Church; the Church is a corporate but singular entity. What I will push back on is that Christ only has a relationship with the Church. I would argue that God has a special relationship with Israel at the same time He has a special relationship with the Church. Not only is this eternal relationship established through covenants, but it is also described as marriage by God: Three examples are Isaiah 54:1-10, Ezekiel 16 and the entire book of Hosea. If we are going to argue polygyny from typology, I believe that these distinct, special relationships that God has with the Church and with Israel actually argue for the acceptability of polygyny. (I also realize that my understanding of Israel and the Church as distinct is the result of my Dispensationalism and that it is hardly the majority position among Christians today; I don’t expect all Christians to accept argument immediately, but I am willing to defend it.)

¶9:
James and I are in agreement about one more thing: neither of us advocate practicing polygyny in America, though for different reasons. My reasons are that we don’t have a significant surplus of women and that we are having enough trouble keeping our monogynous marriages working that we don’t need to complicate things by adding another woman to the mix. Polygyny usually occurs in cultures where women outnumber men because warfare or some other phenomena kills off men in significant numbers; we don’t have that in the US. In other cultures and situations, polygyny solves problems (providing husbands for women who otherwise wouldn’t have husbands, providing for women who can’t have careers outside of prostitution, providing heirs for deceased brothers) while in US culture, it would cause problems.

]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/polygyny-typology-and-hermeneutics/feed/94bstaplesOn Christian Objectivity: Practical Suggestionshttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/on-christian-objectivity-practical-suggestions/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/on-christian-objectivity-practical-suggestions/#commentsFri, 17 Jun 2011 16:57:53 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1064Everybody thinks whatever they have to in order to keep thinking what they already thought. Yeah, that’s right. Your perception of any charged event is strongly shaped by your desire to reinforce what you already thought. We are capable of thinking critically, but we don’t do it nearly as often as we think we do. Basically, we interpret the world the way we already decided we interpret it, which reinforces our conviction that we interpret it correctly.

I thought today I’d create a list of ways to work past our biases. As I said, each of us is capable of free, deep thought. On the other hand, we don’t actually do this as often as we think we do. Most of us think we do this for most of each day.

Think about that. Do you really?

Douglas Copeland said “if you aren’t spending every waking moment rethinking everything, you’re wasting your life.” Are you actually reflecting on your worldview, asking yourself if you see the world the way it actually is most of the day? Of course you aren’t. Almost none of us are. Although I agree with Copeland’s basic point, looking for this to happen every waking moment is a pipe dream. However, we can do this more (much more) than we do now.

Here are some suggestions. Feel free to add yours in the comments!

Read people you disagree with. The smart people, too. Not the popular-level talking heads who aren’t actually as good at thinking as they are at defending old thoughts.

Remember that lawyers and apologists are trained to win arguments, whether or not they are right. This skill is widespread. Don’t look for the people you disagree with who are apologists for ideas you dislike (though you might need to start here for accessibility’s sake), but the actual intellectuals who critically engage with varied ideas.

Contrary to popular belief, most intellectuals don’t ignore common sense; they know a great deal more about their respective field than you do, so one is well-served to hear them out.

Find people who are different than you. I mean, who come from different backgrounds than you, who have been shaped by different social forces. This doesn’t make them smarter than you of course. Well, it probably doesn’t…it does give them a different set of beliefs they’re trying to defend. This both makes them blind to some things as you are blind to some things, but helps them see other things, just as you can see certain things more clearly. In short, they will challenge you to break your pre-conceived ideas.

Think about what is wrong with your ideas. They have weaknesses, or almost no one would disagree with them. If you can’t honestly identify them and explain why you still believe your idea, you haven’t thought about it enough.

Find ideas and people that fall into your thought camp which you disagree with. For example, if you are a Democrat, which parts of the Democratic platform do you disagree with? You might be sold-out on the platform. In that case, if you can’t find Democrats who say dumb things, and recognize it, you’re probably misperceiving things as described above.

Most people have real lives, and can’t do this sort of thing for hours a day. However, we can begin to grow in these areas. One doesn’t successfully change their diet by radically changing it overnight, but by slowly removing things they shouldn’t eat and beginning to eat things they should. There is no shame in gradual change.

]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/on-christian-objectivity-practical-suggestions/feed/1elsteve9A Response to “Christian Objectivity: Polygyny”https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/a-response-to-christian-objectivity-polygyn/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/a-response-to-christian-objectivity-polygyn/#respondWed, 15 Jun 2011 16:00:29 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1052Last week, my fellow blogger Staples offered up an argument in defense of polygyny. To say it more correctly, he offered an argument against the idea that monogamy is a practice that can be defended strongly from the Bible. It is my intention to push back on some of his ideas, and maybe end up with another response from him. I guess only time will tell.

I’ll start by saying that I think Staples hits strongly on something that is probably true; he argues that because forms of polygyny were commanded in the Old Testament (specifically the law dictating a brother impregnate his sister-in-law, should her husband die, apparently regardless of his own relationship status), that the practice of polygyny must not be wrong at all times or in all places. He is probably right on this point. Likewise, it seems true that killing is not always wrong, because God commands the Israelites to slaughter whole towns and even commands individuals to kill at various points in the Old Testament. I’m actually willing to grant this point (and the included example of violence and killing was not used sarcastically, for the record).

But even holding that particular belief, I do actually still believe that monogyny is the structure of marriage God wants us to partake in, if we partake in marriage at all (after all, celibacy is a path of life too). My argument for this objectively is twofold, and I will conclude with an argument for practice in American Christianity.

Firstly, I think Staples mistakenly writes off the story of Genesis and the creation of Adam and Eve. I’m not sure if he writes this off as anecdotal or typological as the paragraph is a bit unclear, but either seems to be a bit hasty. The tale is far from anecdotal; this is the story of the first man and the first woman, living in paradise. If they represent a culture, it seems that they represent a culture inspired and directly affirmed by God, who walked with them. But what strikes me most about the story, in regards to this particular issue, is that Moses describes the union (woman having come from man, and then they reunite) as ‘two becoming one flesh.’ In fact, he goes so far as to say “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This image does not leave room for polygyny, since it is always a two becoming one. Once you are ‘one’ with another, how can you be a part of a ‘two’ with someone else that becomes a new ‘one’? (This reference is repeated by Jesus himself, though he is admittedly primarily speaking about divorce there.)

This leads nicely into my second point, which is one about typology. I also feel that Staples throws out typology rather quickly. While our theological convictions should be “substantiated by the clear teachings of Scripture and only backed up or illustrated by anecdotes or typology”, I actually believe that some typological teachings fall into the category of ‘clear teachings of Scripture.’ An example of this would be the ‘sign of Jonah,’ to which Jesus himself alludes. Jesus speaks of Jonah as a typological story of his own suffering, and theologians have agreed with this.

So when Paul says in relation to the quote from Genesis that “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church,” I think he is setting up a typological understanding that needs to be translated in reality. This is what Paul is saying that marriage is for. This is no longer an issue of culture, but rather an outward expression of a spiritual reality. Regardless of what we do with marriage from a moral standpoint (intrinsic moral value of an act or thing, that is), it seems clear that Paul is teaching that because Christ has but one Bride, we too should have but one spouse.

The obvious push-back there is that the Church is composed of many, and Christ is married to all of those people. I honestly feel the response to be a little cheeky (though I’m open to hearing it if someone thinks it holds weight), primarily because it is pretty clear to me from Paul’s connection to Adam and Eve that the idea is a ‘two become one’ idea, and not a ‘many become one.’ There is but one agent marrying Christ, though in reality that agent is made up of many.

Those constitute my current arguments for an objective and biblically based stance on monogyny. I do want to make one final argument, though it will be brief. It should be noted that this last argument is not against Staples, but rather a general “Just in case someone takes Staples’ arguments and pushes them even farther” statement.

Let us assume for a moment that you do not buy my arguments. You find yourself disgareeing with some point or another and decide to stand with Staples. I would still argue that, if you were raised in a culture strongly against polygyny, you ought to act within the confines of monogyny. If the Bible does not prescribe either explicitly or clearly, it seems best to act as well as we can within the confines of our own cultural norms. Partially this is to avoid sinning against your own conscience (you may have strong convictions about this issue), partially to avoid breaking the law (if you are in America, that is), and partially to avoid damaging your witness to all of the people around you. This issue is not like drinking, which Christians and American culture have varied views on.

I hope my thoughts have been clear and that I have showed an appropriate level of respect for Staples. I hope this never appears as a personal attack. His post was thought-provoking, and made me consider my own stance more strongly than I had before.

Christ Abide.

]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/a-response-to-christian-objectivity-polygyn/feed/0jamesfarnoldHumor: It’s a Serious Businesshttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/humor-its-a-serious-business/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/humor-its-a-serious-business/#commentsMon, 13 Jun 2011 19:05:16 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1047I like to consider myself a student of humor, always striving to improve my own technique. I carefully craft each joke—a dash of absurdity here, a bit of strained repetition there, brush the margins of acceptability over here, thinly and evenly distribute irony across the top, and glaze with good timing. Because my face is usually morose and somewhat funereal, I stick with deadpan delivery. The fact that people often cannot tell whether I am joking magnifies the impact of the joke: by the time they realize that I am being funny, they find themselves assaulted on every side with bone-dry wit.

I take humor very seriously, and I want to be good. While I am not likely to become a rich standup comedian, I like to liven things up wherever I go, and because my humor is not really for my own consumption, I have to consider my audience’s tastes and preferences while I craft my own style. A joke’s purpose and calculated effect derive from the joker’s knowledge of the audience: jokes lighten tense moments, connect strangers, diffuse grief, express anger, unify insiders, isolate outsiders, mock foolishness, and indirectly highlight wisdom.

In its many uses, humor penetrates every area of life: it filters into religion, infiltrates solemn remembrance, subverts threats and intimidation, crushes gloom, dominates politics, and ultimately bungs up the big picture of things. Sometimes the bunging stops the main flow, and sometimes it bungs a leak to strengthen the main flow. All in all, we are never “only joking,” and a joke is never just a joke.

Jokes are tools, they are weapons, they are the party platter’s conversational equivalent. Whatever they are, I believe that objective standards apply in classifying humor as good or bad, as well fashioned or ill made. Such standards include proportion; thorough assessment of the audience; deliberateness of form, style and composition; timeliness of the subject matter; freshness and originality; and sufficient adherence to broader norms to strengthen the joke’s inherent irony or absurdity. Much of what is labeled bad humor today is just poor humor: it involves disproportionate, careless focus on threadbare objects of absurdity—e.g. hours and hours of fart jokes and sex jokes on television. Be that as it may, simply banning bawdy or off-color humor does not cultivate appreciation for well-made humor, and cultivating higher forms of humor does not lead clever people into automatic agreement about life.

I once heard Richard Dawkins give or quote a rendition of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to illustrate his aversion to researching the differing varieties of religion, Christianity in particular. As my college roommate was listening to a podcast, I heard Dawkins cleverly compare theological differences between Christians to the leather in the emperor’s boots or the velvet in his hat or the silk in his shirt: no matter how fine the qualities ascribed to the suit, the distinctions are meaningless because the whole suit does not exist. I cannot source the material, but this does illustrate that people who I systematically disagree with can masterfully execute a humorous repudiation of my own beliefs.

For now, I have to leave you with this: good humor takes a lot of effort over a long time, but it is better for your soul than endless fart jokes.

Here we have a nice little Disney love song, very similar to every other Disney love song written in the last twenty years: girl and boy, connecting somehow, whole world is different, etc. etc. However, this song is not as situation specific as, say, “Beauty and the Beast” or “Part of Your World”, leaving it open to application in a variety of circumstances. After one of our many times listening to “I See the Light”, my mother turned to me and said, “You know, this could be a worship song!” And, with a couple of pronoun changes, it definitely could.

Practically, it’s a simple guitar in an easy-to-sing key; structurally, it’s missing a bridge but has the requisite two verses and a chorus. There’s the biblical imagery of Light versus both darkness and blindness, the obvious distinction between “what I was” and “what I am now”, and the vaguely mystical references to stars. Most importantly, there’s the clear underlying subtext of romantic love so common (and often more blatant) in worship music today. It seems as though every other song on a Sunday morning carries some variation of this theme: Jesus we do love you, Jesus we will love you, Jesus we’re going to do xyz to show we love you. How many choruses are made up of nothing but the words “we”, “love”, “you”, and “us”? “I See the Light” might even be too subtle.

Actually, though, it would be a very bad idea to use this song as part of a worship set. Not only would it take those of us who know the song completely out of a worshipful attitude and start us thinking about Zachary Levi, it also perpetuates the distressing identification of God as our lover. Yes, I realize such language is biblical. However, it is also entirely corporate, about God and Israel or Jesus and the Church, rather than God or Jesus and me personally. Hosea speaks of God’s deep love for Israel, not each individual Israelite; even Jesus’ parable of the Ten Virgins allows five of them to keep watch for the Bridegroom together. To appropriate such language out of context is bad hermenutics and bad theology.

(As a side note, I don’t actually think it’s even appropriate for me individually to feel about the Creator and Saviour, who controls the wind and the waves and will return to unmake the world, as I will about the man I marry – much less so for a guy to feel that way about any other man!)

By this logic, one could arguably use “I See the Light” in a worship context by making all the “I”s into “We”s, but even so, something about it seems off kilter. So, what to do instead? Fortunately for us, God gave us 150 examples of what it means to worship him well, with hardly an “I love you” in sight. Of these, I would categorize about 70 as being primarily celebratory, as opposed to, for example, prayers for deliverance or forgiveness. The psalmists’ default in these songs is an action, rather than a feeling; praise, instead of love. They extoll God as their rock, their shield, their protector. They celebrate his law and his past actions. They sing about God’s strength, his power, his trustworthiness and, yes, his lovingkindness. But through all of it they seem intent on nothing more than explaining, as loudly as possible, how awesome God is, of himself, without reference to how they feel about him.

When our biblical models make almost no reference to an idea, it’s troubling to come across it so often. Worship songs are the most common, but not the only, example of taking the metaphor of God as Lover to an inappropriate application. I love God, but I love him in different ways and for different reasons than the two protagonists of Tangled love each other – it would be nice if our practical theology acknowledged that.

]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/o-lord-our-lord-shining-in-the-starlight/feed/2feminaruminatusChristian Objectivity: Polygynyhttps://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/christian-objectivity-polygyny/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/christian-objectivity-polygyny/#commentsWed, 08 Jun 2011 17:30:15 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=1018What happens when a Western missionary moves into a village someplace and has great success in converting the population to Christianity, but then realizes that some of the new Christian men have more than one wife? These men are often societal leaders or elders, even chiefs, but doesn’t Christianity ban having more than one wife? Should the missionary encourage divorce? But doesn’t God hate divorce?

My sister was presented with this dilemma in one of her classes at Biola this year, and I’m quite proud of her for taking an unpopular stand on the issue. It’s also an example of where I feel most Americans’ ethical objectivity is limited by their culture. The Americans that my sister interacted with, both in her class and in her dorm, tended to argue that polygyny is wrong. When any Biblical texts they used to defend their position were shown to be addressing other issues, they still tended to argue that monogyny was “God’s ideal,” with very little basis. Monogyny is such a part of American culture, it seems, that most Americans find it immensely difficult to conceive that polygyny could be moral.

Polygyny, after all, is why we persecuted the LDS in the first place, and why we continue to persecute the LDS sects that continue to practice polygyny. Polygyny, we argue, will be the end result of allowing gay marriage!

Biblically, though, there is not much of a case against polygyny. The Old Testament contains commands, aimed mostly at kings, to refrain from marrying too many wives, taking for granted that a king will have more than one wife. The Old Testament also contains the commandment for men whose brothers have died without an heir to take their brother’s widow as a wife and raise up an heir for their dead brothers; in effect, this actually commands polygyny when the surviving man has a wife already. Polygyny, then, can’t always be wrong, nor can it be inherently wrong, since God commanded it in certain circumstances.

In the New Testament, we see a command for elders to be “the husband of one wife.” Elders aren’t called to a higher standard than the rest of us; they become qualified to be elders by living by the standard all of us are called to. This command applies to all of us. What is important to remember, though, is that New Testament cultures that Paul was operating in did not practice polygyny. Instead, they practiced serial monogamy, an issue much more relevant to American culture today, and one that is ignored by much of the western Church. Paul was commanding New Testament Christians to be “the husband of one wife” because, in that culture, the only way not to be “the husband of one wife” was to be unfaithful to your wife or to engage in serial monogamy; polygyny wasn’t an option. Paul couldn’t have been banning polygyny because polygyny wasn’t an active practice and he was writing about problems that were contemporary to when he was writing.

The only remaining arguments that I’ve run across, Biblical or not, against polygyny are anecdotal or typological. God created one man and one woman. Biblical examples of polygynous families record nothing but strife. There is one God and one Church and marriage is a typological reflection of that reality. These are all just anecdotes and typology, however. Most hermeneutic systems require that doctrine be substantiated by the clear teaching of Scripture and only backed up or illustrated by anecdotes or typology.

So, what should the missionary do, in my opinion? First off, they need to understand that their cultural forms and ideas about morality are not necessarily absolute universal moral laws. They may, as Stephen points out in his series on Christian Objectivity, have moral ideas that aren’t actually derived from the teaching of Scripture but are instead idiosyncrasies of their own culture. This is actually something that a great many mission agencies teach their missionaries about, if not so much concentrating on morality as on the “forms” of worship. The basic concept is that the Gospel is like a seed that, when planted in different soil, in a different climate, will sprout into different-looking plants that still have the same DNA and still bear the same fruit. Missionaries faced with polygynous Christians, then, should leave well enough alone and teach husbands and wives to love each other. It would actually be evil to teach husbands to divorce their wives merely to conform to the missionaries’ own culture.

]]>https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/christian-objectivity-polygyny/feed/44bstaplesTheology & Pop Culture 2: How?https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/theology-pop-culture-2-how/
https://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/theology-pop-culture-2-how/#commentsMon, 06 Jun 2011 17:13:18 +0000http://pushofpikes.wordpress.com/?p=952The last post in this series explored why it is important to have communication between Christian theology and pop culture. This post will show seven broad ways this can be done. Most of the following is taken from Gordon Lynch’s Understanding Theology and Pop Culture. His book is great for, among other things, laying out some basic methods.

1) Study how religion and popular culture of everyday life interact. How does religion shape the way people live life? How does pop culture change the way people believe?

2) Study the ways pop culture serves religious functions. When people point out the religious nature of football games, they are doing this.

Similarly, you could see in pop culture a way of doing theology. Remember, theology is a way of communicating eternal truths to a particular situation. Christian theology, then, is a way of communicating eternal truths, particularly about God, to a particular situation. Robert Beckford has shown how Bob Marley works out theology in his music. The blues was originally a way of doing gospel music for themes that were not to be discussed in church. Worship music, which is absolutely a piece of pop culture, is a way of doing theology.

3) Understanding pop culture in order to respond to it missionally. This is exactly what many missionaries do all over the world, except in the United States, or Britain (or wherever).

4) The use of pop culture “texts” and practices as a medium for theological reflection. Every time your pastor works some cheesy reference to pop culture into a sermon, she is doing a very basic example of this.

“We’re like iPhones, and we don’t have any bars. But when we are in better communion with Jesus, we get more bars!”

This could also be done in a deeper way, such as I did with Lady Gaga’s “Judas” here.

4a) Relate pop culture to the Bible. For example, you could point out that Mumford & Son’s “Sigh No More” is similar to 1 Corinthians 13:4 (“love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, etc.”), and 2 Cor. 5:14, 17:
Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

2 Cor. 15:14, 17 (NIV)
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died…Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

4b) Compare certain theological ideas to certain pieces of popular culture. Considering how closely Neo (The Matrix) fits Christology is an example of this. I did this with P. Diddy here, and with Christan Bale’s infamous rant here.

Seeing the variety of ways this can be done is helpful to clarify one’s thoughts and aims. It also is a testimony to how important these comparisons are, because they are so versatile.

4c) Search for theological truth in popular culture. This depends on a respect for pop culture, and a recognition that Christians do not already know everything there is to be known about theology. This fact alone limits the variety of Christians able to participate in this method.